Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990

Written varieties

Before 1990		Agreement	Translation
Luso-African	Brazilian
Different pronunciation
anónimo	anônimo	Both forms remain	anonymous
Vénus	Vênus	Both forms remain	Venus
facto	fato	Both forms remain	fact
ideia	idéia	ideia	idea
Silent consonants
acção	ação	ação	action
direcção	direção	direção	direction
eléctrico	elétrico	elétrico	electric
óptimo	ótimo	ótimo	optimal
Diacritics
pinguim	pingüim	pinguim	penguin
voo	vôo	voo	flight
Non-personal and non-geographical names
Janeiro	janeiro	janeiro	January

The Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990 (Portuguese: Acordo Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa de 1990, [ɐˈkoɾðw ɔɾtuˈɣɾafiku ðɐ ˈɫĩɡwɐ puɾtuˈɣezɐ]) is an international treaty whose purpose is to create a unified orthography for the Portuguese language, to be used by all the countries that have Portuguese as their official language. It was signed in Lisbon, on 16 December 1990, at the end of a negotiation, begun in 1980, between the Sciences Academy of Lisbon and the Brazilian Academy of Letters. The signatories included official representatives from all of the Portuguese-language countries except East Timor, which was under Indonesian occupation at the time, but later adhered to the Agreement, in 2004.

Galicia was invited to take part in the reform but the Galician government ignored the invitation, since it regards Galician and Portuguese as different languages. However, an unofficial commission formed by Galician linguists who support the unity of the language attended the meetings as observers.

The Orthographic Agreement of 1990 intends to establish a single official orthography for the Portuguese language and thus to improve its international status, putting an end to the existence of two official orthographic norms: one in Brazil and another in the remaining Portuguese-speaking countries. Proposers of the Agreement give the Spanish language as a motivating example: Spanish has many variations, between Spain and Hispanic America, both in pronunciation and in vocabulary, but it is under the same spelling norm, regulated by the Association of Spanish Language Academies.

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